


of ashen bones and dry veins

by verdum



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dream Smp, Gen, Technoblade-centric (Video Blogging RPF), The Nether (Minecraft), au where technoblade fucking dies, techno is gone crabrave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdum/pseuds/verdum
Summary: Technoblade's downfall begins the Wither spawns. He doesn't realize.Techno dies slowly and he really only notices when it's too late.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s), Technoblade & TommyInnit, no shipping real people in my household
Comments: 5
Kudos: 114





	of ashen bones and dry veins

No one stays in the fortresses for long. People do go in when they need something, but they’re usually not really interested in stopping by and admiring the architecture. And for good reason, too. It’s generally very risky to dwell in them for too long, which keeps the weaker players as far away as possible. There’s also the matter of the whispers. The walls like to tell stories, which is fine if you don’t mind hearing about death in extensive detail, of course, but sometimes they also make people homicidal, which is always a problem. 

Technoblade doesn’t know this and he doesn’t really notice any extra bloodlust, wrapped up in his own as he is. He first visits the fortress after the festival, when he wanders around just so he doesn’t have to go back to Pogtopia, back to a seething Tommy, a hurt Tubbo and to Wilbur, who somehow managed to go batshit crazy somewhere in the last 36 hours. Not that he minded Wilbur going insane and wanting to destroy L’manburg, but still. It was exhausting living with someone prone to breaking out into dramatic monologues and Techno didn’t really have the energy to deal with all that.

It’s easy for him to fall back into the familiar cycle of combat, the feeling of death breathing at his neck and waiting for him to mess up almost comforting. It brings him back to simpler times and Techno makes these visits a habit. He doesn't hear the brick whisper to him, too busy listening to his own voices to pay attention to others, but he does notice writing on the walls, crooked runes scratched all over.

They're ancient, the sentences strangely structured and Techno spends days trying to figure out what they mean. When he finally cracks them, he's ecstatic, the feeling of victory stronger than it had been in months. The writing talks of destruction personified, calls it the Wither. The Wither is described in a way that makes Techno think it must have something to do with the strange skeletons that only appear in the nether. He scours the fortress, tries to find other rune covered walls, and when he reads everything there is to be read, he moves on to another one.

He stumbles on another string of symbols in a fortress that is crawling with rotting skeletons. He deciphers it. Then he reads it. He does a double take. He reads it again. A guide is written out before him. It taunts him with power at his fingertips and since Techno's never been one to fear destruction he memorizes the whole thing. He doesn’t really think it’ll work, but he still starts taking the head of every withered skeleton he meets. The things he could do with just one Wither tempt him too much to dismiss it and he has to try at least once.

It works. When he summons for the first time, he doesn't notice anything change. The walls sing whenever he steps foot inside them now, happy to see him, reveling in the ruin following in his footsteps. He is a brother to them, a friend. The blood covered brick talks to him and pulls him close, tells him how proud it is. Techno starts spending a lot more time in the nether. His voices are shoved out and replaced by the whispers.

Technoblade's downfall starts the moment the Wither spawns. He doesn't realize.

\---

He feels it more than he sees it when it comes to visit him again. He hasn't seen the figure standing behind him in years, not that he missed it or wondered where it was, as long as it minded its own business. But it’s here, now, when he's trying to be a pacifist and that can't mean anything good, can it. The deity standing before him looks subtly terrifying as always, a horror you can't quite feel until it sinks into your bones and takes root in you, and Techno wonders not for the first time if all gods are like this, terrible and uncaring and larger than life. His respect for the god he sold himself to doesn't stop him from sounding annoyed when he finally addresses it, though.

"What do you want?", he cuts straight to the point, wanting this to be over already. His inability to talk to people gets a hundred times worse when he's conversing with an eldritch god that could kill him without moving a finger and he sounds stilted and awkward.

The Blood God looks at him. "I am here to see what you've been up to, of course. Why else would I be visiting?"

"You already know about everything I do, though. The Voices give you enough info about me, I'm sure. Every thought broadcasted back to you, right?"

"Why are you so brash? Tell me, when have you gotten cocky enough to disrespect gods?"

"Well, you see, the reason I might seem rude is because last time you visited me I got left with a bunch of nerds screaming in my head and telling me to commit homicide." Techno tries to lighten the situation at least a bit by pretending he’s just talking to an equal and then promptly realizes that might not have been the best move as the Blood God suddenly turns offended.

"The Voices were a gift-"

"They’re a curse-"

"They saved your life several times.", it sounds like a disapproving parent and Techno regrets swearing off violence as he thinks about killing the god that stands before him. "I paid them back with the blood of countless others.", he replies, trying to sound like that fact doesn't bother him.

The Blood God isn't very impressed. "That was just part of the contract we made. Symbiosis, at least until you pushed them out."

"I didn't push them out. They're still here and telling me to kill.", he says, unsure of what the deity's playing at.

"Oh, but how long has it been since they've demanded death in my name? Your Voices are gone. I don't know what's in your head," it stops and suddenly looks terribly amused, "well, I do know what it is, but where's the fun in telling you? You’ll find out soon enough. Or you won’t. It won’t matter either way. It was good knowing you, though. You were quite a useful acquaintance, Technoblade." and then it's gone.

\---

The night after his reunion and subsequent farewell to the Blood God, Techno dreams of a crater with two rotting corpses lying in it. One raises its hand towards him. He panics, stomps on it, needing to get it away away _away_ , the dead can’t touch him, not yet- The carcass screams and it hurts and everything is loud and too much and the screaming isn’t stopping why isn’t it stopping please make it stop and then the howl grabs him and tears him apart, and he’s emptyempty _empty_ -

When he wakes up, he remembers his nightmare vividly and he almost manages to calm himself down, before he realizes this has to be another dream, because he still feels like he has a void for a chest and it’s grabbing at him and no, this can’t be real, please, why can’t he wake up, nononononoNO-

It’s not a dream.

\---

He wonders about the part of him that’s missing, before he settles on the conclusion that it’s his backup lives. He sneaks into a library that night, trying to find anything that could help him. There’s nothing about bringing his backups back, but one old book mentions a totem that can guarantee a second chance, should the one holding it be dying.

The next day, Techno contacts Dream asking about woodland mansions. He doesn't tell him why he needs totems, but the amusement in Dream’s voice makes him think his ally still somehow _knows_. 

He leaves the meeting more paranoid than ever, flies away from the mountain as fast as he can and then takes the long way to his house, trying to shake off anyone that could be following him, even if the person he’s escaping already knows where to find him.

\---

The anvil hits him dead on.

The totem is the only reason he survives, creating new bones, new skin, new muscle. Techno starts sprinting the moment he can and doesn’t look behind him, where the parts of him that were torn off turn into ash.

\---

He fights Quackity, who doesn’t stand a chance, really, but gets lucky enough to slash Techno’s arm. It stings whenever he moves and he knows it’s going to bother him for the next few days at least. He shoves his sword right through the vice president’s stomach and escapes without getting into any more fights.

When he later goes to take care of the cut, instead of blood it’s filled with something that looks a lot like soot.

\---

“Hey, big T, big T, you know, you’re kinda like that guy from the myths, the immortal one with feet-” “Achilles, Tommy, Achilles.” “yeah, yeah, Achilles, I knew that, I knew that. You’re kinda like him, except I don’t know about your feet, you know, big man, but if you have weird feet that’s nothing to worry about- Would stabbing you in the foot kill you? I don’t think it would. It sure wouldn’t kill me, because you don’t really need feet to live, but still…” Techno lets Tommy move to the next subject and ramble on, only halfway listening. The comparison to Achilles throws him back to a time when he thought he was immortal and took on the world without fear. He was so young then, wandering the world and not getting wrapped up in the plots of mad men and their governments.

Once, the phrase ‘Technoblade never dies’ rang true. Now, he is closer to death than most of the people he knows and losing time quickly.

\---

Tommy betrays him and Techno thinks it really shouldn’t be surprising, but maybe a part of him believed that this time would be different and maybe a part of him liked the child. It hurts, it hurts a lot to lose someone who was a friend. Was Tommy even a friend? No. No, he wasn't, never has been. He could’ve at least had the decency to not lie to Techno. But he did and realizing that Tommy doesn’t care about him hurts more than the anvil ever did.

The next day, everything is destroyed, in part by his hands. He summons an army and for a moment, he is all-powerful again, and for a moment, he stops dying. It all comes crashing down about 5 minutes later.

\---

Technoblade withers away.

His end is not very fitting, much too calm for the life he has led. There’s no heroes, no monologues, no climax, just a stray arrow that lodges himself into his stomach. The skin around it starts crumbling and then Techno’s body caves in on itself, muscle and skin turns to dust that flavors the air around it with the despair of a dying man. No one sees him die. Instead of mourning him, the world breathes a small sigh of relief and moves on.

Phil finds his remains after the battle ends. He buries the pile of black bones near Techno’s house. He wanders through the snow for hours, hoping to see a ghost, a goodbye, something. He doesn’t find anything and thinks that not being near his friend when he died might have hurt more than having to kill his son.

\---

In a way, Techno stays alive. On a wall in a fortress, runes begin spelling out a most thrilling story about a warrior covered in blood, praising the massacres he committed as they immortalize him and set him in stone.

In a way, Technoblade never dies, even when he does.

**Author's Note:**

> killing pig boy: when beating him isn't enough
> 
> also if you've made it this far thanks for reading my work it means a lot. drop me a kudos if you want to, or tell me i'm a good writer and smart and totally not illiterate in the comments, or BOTH if you're feeling spicy ;)


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